Main menu

Post navigation

The Twelve Days of Idol Christmas – Jin Jin Jingle Bell

This time this song is a bit older – from the 90s, and originally by Moritaka Chisato who I don’t quite know if I classify as an idol. I mean, she was a very idol-y performer, but she wrote her own music. Anyways, Moritaka did write this, even though this is a fairly simple song – the chorus of “Jin jin jingle bell jin jin jingle bell Merry Christmas” is repeated a lot. However, it is a good chorus and not unpleasant to listen to. The verses aren’t anything special, though – they’re mostly the connective tissue between the repetition of the chorus. That said, it is a decent take on Jingle Bells as a song, because Jingle Bells is such an overplayed song that I’m glad to hear something different from it. Also, Jingle Bells is really kind of an obnoxious song, so having anything different is preferable.

Since this is an older, well known Christmas idol song it gets covered! The first up is from model Sasaki Nozomi, featuring Pentaphonic.

Surprisingly this adds a lot, including quite a bit of rap, some new melody, and more instrumental. It’s a much longer version. Which isn’t a particularly good thing. It feels very dragged out – Nozomi isn’t a particularly strong rapper (or singer, really), and there’s nothing that makes this deserve the longer run time. This just feels tedious.

Back in 2013 (wow, really, two years ago?) Super Girls formed subgroups to release covers of classic idol songs. One of the groups, Twinkle Veil, covered this. This is a much more traditional cover, and, as much as I’m a Moritaka Chisato fan, this is probably my favorite version. The production of this is very bright and cheery, and adds some much needed energy to the song. The original is much more subdued in performance, but Twinkle Veil did a fairly conservative cover (not wildly different like Sasaki Nozomi’s) with the production of a modern group.

Finally, Moritaka Chisato did a 2014 version as a self cover:

It’s not too different but with a bit of light rapping in the backround. It’s pretty good – it’s still undeniably a Moritaka Chisato version, and the weird hip hop addition is pretty unnecessary. However, it does have some more energy to it, which I like.

Overall this is a pretty solid Christmas song that really depends on the production/how it’s done.